Legalize the undocumented

April 25, 2010|By Fred Tsao

My father came to the United States from China in 1949. Through the networks that helped him come over, he got set up in Danville, Ill. He bought and ran the city's only Chinese restaurant, the Jasmine Tower, just north of the courthouse downtown. During the nine years he ran the restaurant, he worked incredibly hard to make a living in the United States and to support his mother and brothers back in China.

This being the 1950s, before the advent of Asian fusion and long before anyone heard of wasabi or arugula, Chinese food was the most exotic cuisine that many Americans experienced. As a result, the restaurant was popular, drawing many local bigwigs as regular customers.

So respected was my father that when he needed a favor — helping a young nurse who had become his pen pal come over from China herself — his friends connected him with the area's congressman, Leslie Arends, the powerful longtime Republican whip in the U.S. House. (Arends' portrait hangs on the second floor of the Illinois Capitol, outside the governor's office.) Arends helped get the nurse a visa. That nurse became my mother.

Did I mention that my father was here illegally?

Like my father and my mother, hundreds of thousands of immigrants have come to Illinois to make better lives for themselves. Undocumented workers, like my father, play a major role in our economy. According to the Texas-based Perryman Group, an economic and financial analysis firm, the undocumented make up 5 percent of the work force in the U.S. and in Illinois — and they come to work. Most undocumented workers work on the books and pay payroll taxes that are helping to prop up our Social Security system. And undocumented immigrants alone add about $5.5 billion to the Chicago region's economy through their consumer spending, according to a University of Illinois at Chicago study. Yet their lack of legal status holds them back from climbing the job ladder, and enables employers to drive down wages and working conditions for all workers.

Our nation is now debating how we treat these undocumented workers. Deporting them is not a realistic option: Mass deportations would costthe nation $2.6 trillion over 10 years. On the other hand, legalizing undocumented workers would enable them to earn more, get better jobs and buy for the future. This path would generate $1.5 trillion in economic gain and bring in $48 billion in tax revenue over 10 years.

Immigration reform that enables the undocumented to gain legal status makes good economic sense for our state and our country. As we climb out of the economic downturn, we need the contributions of every worker and every entrepreneur. Like my father, the hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants in Illinois and the millions across the U.S. can make even greater contributions to our economy if given the opportunity. Former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar, a Republican from east central Illinois, made this point when he spoke to 200 business and civic leaders on April 8 at the launch of the Illinois Business Immigration Coalition: "If Congress wants to jump-start the economy, comprehensive immigration reform is a good start."

My father finally got his green card after 18 years and continued to work hard, saving enough money to support his family in China, buy a house in St. Louis (where he still lives) and help put my brother and me through college and then me through law school and my brother through pharmacy school. Congress should pass immigration reform this year so that immigrants can keep making our state and our country strong.

Fred Tsao is policy director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.